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Post subject: Powered Monitor with Passport 300
Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 8:19 am
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Hobbyist
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Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2012 4:28 pm
Posts: 2
Hello

I want to use a powered monitor with my passport 300.
I think I should use the 1/8'' Stereo-Out.
The input jack of the powered monitor is a Mono-XLR.
How do I have to connect the pin's?

Best Wishes from Germany
Uli


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Post subject: Re: Powered Monitor with Passport 300
Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 11:24 am
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Aspiring Musician
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Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:24 am
Posts: 434
Here's your problem:

Stereo cables use three wires. One is the "hot" end for the left channel, a second wire is the "hot" end for the right channel, and the third wire is the ground. Stereo cables are "unbalanced". They lack the special ground/shield connector.

XLR cables are for mono signals, so there is no "left" or "right". There is the one "hot" wire, the "ground" wire, and a third wire which is a special kind of ground wire that shields the cable.

The older plug designs come in either 1/4" or 1/8" diameters, and they either have two wires going to a "TS" plug (one wire going to the Tip, the other going to the Shaft, hence TS), or they have three wires (TRS for "Tip", "Ring" and "Shaft"). These TRS cables get used two different ways.

In systems that have stereo, like headphones or stereo microphones, or the output from your 1/8" TRS out signal on your Passport 300 Pro, the wires are used for unbalanced stereo. It's unbalanced because there's no special shield wire in the cable. Hot-hot-ground.

In systems that have balanced mono, like the special mic cables that have XLR at the mic end and TRS at the amp end, the three wires are hot-ground-shield. You don't want one end of the cable to be unbalanced stereo and the other end of the cable being balanced mono. Doing that hooks a hot wire directly to a ground or shield. This is bad.

Since XLR is only for 3-wire, balanced mono, and your 1/8" TRS output is for unbalanced stereo, they are fundamentally incompatible, unless you know how to make your own "mono-izer" to combine stereo signals into one balanced, mono output.

For myself, I skipped all that by using a Mackey SRM 150 powered monitor with an input channel that takes two RCA inputs. Crutchfields (home electronics store) carried a high-quality cable (Monster) that goes from 1/8" stereo TRS to two RCA plugs. They fit into the Mackey, and it combines the two signals into mono, playing the mono signal through its single speaker and electronically passing it through to a female XLR port to daisy chain the signal to other monitors.

So, I can't tell you how to connect your powered monitor to your Passport 300 Pro, unless you buy a Mackey SRM 150 to use as a second monitor and as an adapter, using a normal XLR cable from the "pass through" port on the Mackey to your existing monitor.

I don't solder.


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